The Cloud

There's a cloud of negativity surrounding the Mets these days. They're playing sloppily and, at times, listlessly. They're not coming through when it matters most and are blowing late leads. The clubhouse, a pristine, trouble-free zone for over two years, seems oddly combustible. The Minaya-Randolph team, one of the more stable and seemingly competent manager/GM duos in all of baseball, seems somehow not as impressive as they did six months ago.

And yet they're still in first place, still leading the division by three games, still on a pace to win 90 games. If fact, barring a significant collapse, the Mets will win the NL East in back-to-back years for the first time in franchise history.

It's not a bad place to be, huh?

I have a theory that last year's success, coupled with the team's great record in April and May, has spoiled Mets fans. Instead of celebrating the team's strong season, we fret about the middle relief, about the hitting, about the team's inability to hit in the clutch, about, in short, what the team lacks. And, as a result, we've become like the annoying Yankee or Red Sox fan in your office, complaining about the "infuriating" or "maddening" team that is, in all actuality, playing just fine.

So instead of developing an ulcer, I'm going to take a step back and recognize that the Mets, a talented but very flawed team, are almost certainly going to be competing in the playoffs come October. When that time comes, the Mets will have as good of a chance as any other to take home the crown. How can you ask for more than that?

It's a good time to be a Mets fan. You'd just never know it by talking to one.

Around the Web:

The Mets did the right thing by not waiting a week (a la Carlos Beltran) to put Paul Lo Duca on the DL immediately after he hurt his hamstring on Saturday night. Of course, it blew up in their face, with Lo Duca complaining to the media about his treatment and Ramon Castro going down with back spasms yesterday. So it looks like we'll be seeing more of Mike DiFelice behind the dish for the next week....

I really hope this rumor about Shake Shake serving burgers at CitiField in 2009 is true. (link from Can't Stop the Bleeding).

The Hardball Times' Dave Studeman cites research from a physicist who says that sliding into first base might actually make sense:

Like a lot of Mets watchers, I was driven nuts by Roberto Alomar's tendency to slide into first base on a close play. But according to physicist Alan Nathan, I maybe have been too hard on the guy:

Can a batter get to first base quicker by running through the base or in a head-first slide? Most people believe the former. I believe the latter. The essential physics is that by sliding with outstretched arms, the batter reaches the bag before his center of gravity reaches it, whereas those two times more or less coincide when running through the bag.

Yeah, maybe, but when thinking about it, I always come back to the classic question: If diving were faster, wouldn't sprinters dive past the finish line in a 100 yard dash? (I know it would hurt upon landing, but if a gold medal were on the line, you know someone would have tried it by now.)

Mike Steffanos of Mike's Mets takes a closer look at how the Mets Minor League arms (Pelfrey, Humber, Vargas, Bostick, etc) have been performing this year. Here's a snippet Mike's analysis of Phil Humber's "yo-yo" season:

If you're looking for a bright side to Phillip Humber's yo-yo season in New Orleans it is that he has stayed healthy and pitched 117 innings in 21 starts. He has allowed 18 home runs in those 21 games and has been inconsistent. After coming back so strong last season from Tommy John surgery maybe it's understandable that there would be some setbacks. If not quite what he (or we) hoped for, however, he's still enjoying a solid year in what is essentially his first full minor league season.